Existence
by unset city
Summary: Insanity was his existence. He rememebered when it had all began, when he had started smiling forever...


_Existence_

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Joker**

**I wrote this when I was half asleep, so sorry if it's weird, cuz I think it kind of is. **

When he stopped to think about it, really stopped to think, he sometimes could not help but wonder what his existence was really for. Was he doomed to blow things up for the rest of his life? Was he really meant to battle Batman all his life? Fate was something he never entirely believed in, and never completely understood.

He did like his life—if he didn't, then he would not have started into this line of so called 'business' in the first place. He enjoyed the thrill of destroying things—both lives and buildings—and the blind terror he got from his victims—so many dear innocents—was like an aphrodisiac; once he had gotten some, he had to get more, and more and more. Thus, through that yearning, that dark desire that was like fire in his veins, warming him and searing him at the same time, the Joker had been born, brought into existence.

That day, when he had first gotten a taste of the life he longed for, the life he was to have, could be considered a day of fate. He had decided not to take the normal route to work; it had been a pleasant day, the sky had been blue, infinitely so, he remembered, and the air had been so fresh in clean. Nothing had seemed wrong; on the contrary, everything had seemed deceivably perfect. What a bitch the world was, fate was…

He remembered whistling a tune, a tune he sometimes whistled even now to help him retreat into the farthest corner of his mind, the place where no light, no matter how strong, could reach. His special niche, where he could curl up and see knives and blood and bombs all around him, ready to detonate at the slightest movement, always keeping him thrilling on the edge. Of course, he never did mind when they actually did go off; on the contrary, he enjoyed it, watching everything explode, his psyche becoming scrambled with colors and darkness and flares of demonic light. Oh yes, it was when the bombs went off that he was free, that he was the complete Joker and he caused mass chaos—that beautiful chaos—meant only for him to enjoy, no one else. His own personal show… Lately, the bombs had been going off more and more as his thoughts on identity, on existence, progressed. As that memory lingered, intermingling with that aged tune, thrumming in his temples…

He had walked past an alley, a typical civilian back then, innocent, so damn naïve. His tune had stopped when he had noticed the man pressing the girl against the brick wall in the alley, that narrow, narrow, dirty place, with a blade, shining so malevolently, pressed against her lips.

Back then he had been good, too good, and had thought to help. The good day had addled his mind, started him on that path of bombs as he stepped toward the man, so courageous and foolish, and asked him to put the knife down. The man had been smiling at him, that wicked grin that he saw every time he looked in the mirror, a grin he could relate to exactly—his grin.

His hands had smelt of death when he had grabbed him, so tough for such a frail, insane man, and pushed him against the wall. The girl he had saved had scrambled away without a word; she did not ever say thank you, and he never saw her again. Her, the reason for that day…She had been the embodiment of fate herself.

The man had cackled at him in a shrill laugh that filled his mind, plagued and ate at his thoughts like a parasite until they distorted them, and he was left at the mercy of this man, so insane, so happy, holding that glittering knife and staring down at him, leering, jeering. He heard the words then, the words he would repeat to all of his victims before the blade entered, sliced, as it had for him.

"Why so serious?" Rancid breath, hollow eyes, cold metal in a mouth.

"You need to _smile_ more…"

And he had—would—always; he had not let that man down. The cuts had been jagged and sloppy, but they served the point, the purpose—a smile, a lovely caricature of one, that had the ability to repulse everyone, even those he held dear. Yes, those scars that were still there, ever present, had been the cause of one man's downfall, and another man—creature's—uprising. Jack could not handle the scars, but the Joker could; the Joker could handle anything, do anything, and get revenge.

The Joker had come into existence not from Batman, not from fate nor any other force than himself. It was through his distorted thoughts, formed under the point of a knife, that the Joker had risen, a terrifying killing machine that he could not deny, that he had to decorate his face and cause chaos, the same chaos that had swelled in his mind at seeing that man leering over that girl, and he had to repeat the destruction of the world in accordance with the destruction of his face, his loved ones.

His existence was to smile, forever, and never let it go.

His existence was to show the world that even on the most perfect of days the world could go to shit, a life could be destroyed.

And his existence was, above all else, to show just how insanity had been born, just how close it was to the edge of every mind. A mangled face, a dead loved one, being so close to death…

Insanity was his existence.


End file.
